Daily report from the Great Arab Revolt Project in Jordan in October/November 2010

Saturday, 6 November 2010

Day 12 - Rest day and plans for the future

Some pictures of Wadi Musa, the town in which we stay and the entrance to the ruins at Petra.Wadi Musa means "Moses' Wadi' and is supposed to be the place that he struck the rock and water came out.

Having more or less completed our investigation of the war along the railway line between Ma’amn and Mudawarra, this season sees the effective conclusion of the first phase of GARP’s fieldwork. In relation to it, we will now moving, slowly but surely, towards final publication in the fm of a full monograph.

So where do we go from here in the field? There is much discussion to be had. But preliminary thinking is this. The old road from Aqaba to Ma’an represents a different landscape, a different kind of war, and yet one which was heavily contested and is well recorded in written sources. To investigate it comprehensively, and to use the material evidence in the landscape to build a full picture of the nature of the war, is likely to require another five years of field work. Bring it on!

At the same time we would like to develop a strong relationship with our new Turkish colleagues who have the skills and opportunity to support the field research with archive based research in Istanbul. In Jordan, a missing element so far has been the involvement of Jordanian students and ordinary Jordanian communities. We hope to put right these omissions in the second phase of the work.

Finally, we hope to engage the Jordanian authorities in developing new heritage tourism assets related to the Great Arab Revolt and Lawrence of Arabia’s war.

Interim blog - some pictures of Wadi Musa, the town in which we stay and the entrance to the ruins at Petra.

3 comments:

It's good to see some more images of Wadi Musa; it looks like an Arab version of a Wild west Frontier town!Thank you again for another interesting Blog and best wishes to all for an uncomplicated route through Customs and a safe journey home.Anthea

Despite having sort of 'signed off', I've just spent some time re-reading the blog. As a result of being away from home during some of this trip and having tried to view it over a mobile connection, sometimes, I now realise, there were bits I didn't see properly; this especially applies to the videos. For example, I'm fascinated to see where the Bedouin have put their abode - between the railway line and the road; just seeing this kind of home 'for real' is most interesting. I think the videos are a real bonus, as was the map but that didn't download very clearly. The photos this year have been exceptional. I showed the blog to others who weren't following it and their response was the same as mine.There are at least 3 non-Archaeology specialists following the blog this year and I think for us, a summary, with a map, of what GARP has achieved would be useful, as well as some idea of what happens next: this would encourage those of us watching from 'outside' the subject areas to keep returning and continue to take an interest. Continuity is difficult for the likes of us when there is only the annual blog to relate to.Well done again.Best wishes,Anthea

Firstly may I say thank you so much for your comments and support over this season's blog. It really is very rewarding to get so much interested and positive feedback. Many thanks indeed.

In regard to the photos, they are all taken by me on a new compact camera - a Panasonic Lumix FS-25 which I took this year for the first time, and left my Canon Eos digital SLR kit at home. I mus say I'm incredibly impressed with the camera myself. All the images on the blog are reduced to 25% or smaller than the originals, and they still retain great presence and clarity. The videos are taken with a very cheap Kodak Zi6 pocket cam which I've barely used before, and again are really good for the cost of the kit. I will put some more up later in the week.

The map of current/previous progress is something we have been thinking about and we will definitely be putting a version up over the next month or so. Also the plans for next season, which were updated on this blog later in the day that the first information was posted, will be elaborated as we approach the publication of the monograph in 2011.

Many thanks again for all your interest. Genuinely grateful for this and your support. Roger Ward